'The Hobbit: There & Back Again' Pushed to December 2014 Opening

Briefly: There's a lot of release date shuffling going on right now between the studios. One moves something big, it causes everything else to shift, especially with so many projects in or going in to production. Deadline reports that Warner Bros / New Line has decided to push back the final movie in Peter Jackson's trilogy, The Hobbit: There & Back Again, from its original July 18th, 2014 release (same day as X-Men: Days of Future Past) to December 17th, going in line with the Lord of the Rings trilogy (every December in '01, '02, '03). Remember, There & Back Again was added as the third movie just last year, originally set to follow The Desolation of Smaug this December by arriving July, but it looks like it's back to December as well.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit… J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, being directed by Peter Jackson as three separate movies, is set in Middle-Earth 60 years before Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in a trilogy ten years ago. The films, with screenplays by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson, were shot consecutively in digital 3D using the latest cameras. The Hobbit follows the journey of Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug lands in theaters in 3D & 48FPS on December 13th.

I don't think it's all on him. I'm sure the studio was heavily involved in the decision. The Hobbit is not LOTR. It's an extremely short, extremely silly little kid's book that has no business being turned into 3 films.

racquetman on Feb 28, 2013

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Unless of course they throw in a lot of extra material to make it more LOTR-esque. I like that, I want it to feel like one big story and be cohesive...as opposed to The Hobbit being more like it's book, I'd like it to be more like the LOTR movies. That being said, you CAN tell they stretched the story to it's utmost limits...but I'm sure the 2nd and 3rd will be better.

I read the books (LotR and The Hobbit), I saw the LotR movies in the theater, I bought the DVDs (standard and extended editions), I bought the Blu-rays . . . . . I'm over it. I was a fan but at this point they have enough of my money, and, like I said, it's all getting too monotonous for me. I would have paid to see one Hobbit movie, though. As you said, to each his own.

racquetman on Feb 28, 2013

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It wasnt a blatant money grab, it was in attempt to tell a WHOLE story at the request of Peter Jackson to Warner Bros...
Jackson said he wanted to include story elements from the Appendices at the end of The Return of the King book. Elements that are crucial to the story of The Hobbit. (Gandalf meeting Thorin in Bree, Battle of Azanulbizar, and the White Council's assault on The Necromancer in Dol Goldur)
So it was more for artistic expression and complete story telling than just a quick cash grab.

LosZombies on Feb 28, 2013

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Yes, the investors main concerns were "artistic expression and complete story telling." Please stop being so naive. This is the real world, not middle earth. The studios care about ROI, not whether or not Jackson gets to tell some silly fantasy story. They green lit three movies because they believed it made financial sense. No more, no less.

racquetman on Mar 1, 2013

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"Yes, the investors main concerns were "artistic expression and complete story telling."
-I never said artistic expression was the investor's concerns, it was Jackson's. It's called a "win-win", investors/studios get their profit, Jackson gets to shoot a COMPLETE story, and fans get what they want. (mostly)
I am fully aware this is the real world, and in THIS real world, The Hobbit made more than 1billion dollars world wide, all without YOUR money. So let others enjoy a movie, and take your petty stand. Not like it makes a difference anyways.
Good day.

LosZombies on Mar 4, 2013

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Art over box office... LOL

castingcouch on Mar 1, 2013

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The potential profit of The Hobbit trilogy certainly allows for such cynical thinking. But I think The Hobbit, in spite of its flaws, shows that it was made with a lot of people's love, time, creative energy and a substantial bit of money. You're not paying for a more expensive theatre ticket for the end result of all that. You pay the same price you would any other film, that might actually turn out to be a polished turd, made with the least amount of time, energy and money as possible.
Although I don't doubt producers will not let the idea of profit out of the back of their mind, I have serious doubts that Peter Jackson would agree to it for any other reason than that he believes the story he's telling is worth telling. Whether or not he's right about that is an entirely different issue.
If money-grabbing is the primary goal, surely there are easier ways to do that than shooting extra material to make it into a 3 arc film.

Indeed. I had always assumed it would open in December. It never occurred to me that it was going to be a summer release - where was the sense in that?

HyperJ on Feb 28, 2013

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The ideology was probably 'smaller gap between film 2 and 3 = bigger hype for the last film'...you would get the 2nd film in theaters, then hitting the home market, and all of that could roll right into heavy promotion for the last film.